Remembering
by clair beaubien
Summary: He needs to remember. Set post-TWS.
1. Chapter 1

He had nowhere to go.

For the first time in a hundred years he had nowhere to go and no idea what to do next.

Maybe it wasn't one hundred years; maybe it was fifty or seventy. He had elements of a battery of memories detached and kinetic inside his head but any attempt to isolate and identify them had always been burned out of him.

But only the attempts had been burned; not the elements. They still floated free inside his head. That's how they never had to teach him to kill each time.

So now he needed somewhere to go. Somewhere no extraction team would find him. Somewhere he could find clothes that would let him blend in, disappear, so nothing could be burned out of him again.

So _no one_ could be burned out of him again, he thought as he turned in the safety of distance and camouflage and watched the overly large response team converge on the motionless body farther down the bank of the river.

_You're my friend…you've known me your whole life…_

He didn't know what that meant. His whole life. Whenever he opened his eyes, the world had moved on without him and a new grouping of people confronted him. He wasn't a friend. He was a weapon, an assassin, an attack dog. A rabid dog. He didn't remember anyone ever calling him a friend.

No one except the man who - once his own mission was over - had offered no defense of himself, had been willing to die rather than abandon him.

Something churned up from his guts into the back of his throat thinking that, hearing that word in his head, _abandoned._

He didn't want to be abandoned anymore.

He stayed in the camouflage of the trees until nightfall, watching from where he knew he wouldn't be detected as the other man was prepped and packaged and airlifted to safety and medical care. To family and friends and people happy to see him.

He stayed in the trees into the darkness until he found the strength to reach into his memory and pluck a floating memory back into existence.

He remembered somewhere he could go.

Shadows muted his movements from the river, through the city, to the apartment building of the man he'd pulled from the river. The man who was in the hospital now. He followed the shadows up to the ledge that led him to the window that let him into the apartment.

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

He stood in the apartment several minutes, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He knew the apartment was monitored and, in the very likely event there were still eyes and ears surveilling this location, he wouldn't alert them to his presence by turning on a lamp or even a flashlight.

A sense of apprehension filled him, standing in the darkness. He'd been in apartments before, but this was different. He'd been in apartments, homes, offices, garages, planes, ships, tunnels, sewers, caves - but those had always been when his mission was to kill someone.

Now his mission seemed to be to resurrect someone.

Himself.

When the opaque blackness had dissipated to dim gray, he took a read on his surroundings. He was in the front room. The hallway just ahead would lead to the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. He'd find food and clothes there that would help him remain undetected out in the world.

He moved forward slowly, stepping on the outsides of his feet and rolling them soundlessly down to the floor. The sharp pain in his right arm was dulling to an unremarkable ache and would soon be gone entirely but he kept it flexed and still, close to his side but not touching. Any sound of the fabric rustling or even brushing against itself could be picked up on the bugging devices in these rooms.

The hallway led to the kitchen first but he kept going to the bedroom. Clothes were more important than food, especially if his position was compromised and he had to leave the apartment sooner than he was anticipating.

He stood still again for a minute in the doorway of the bedroom, getting his bearings. Neatly made bed. Functional bureau with a mirror attached to the back but nothing across the top of it, no photographs or trinkets. A small table next to the bed that held a lamp and a book. A door between the bed and bureau that was probably the closet. A straight back chair next to the bureau that had some clothes laid over it. A wastebasket.

Nothing else.

No big screen TV. No computer. No dirty dishes or dirty ash trays. No paraphernalia of opulence or decadence or violence.

Just a bed, a bureau, a lamp and a chair.

_You're my friend, you've known me your whole life…_

Had he been in this room before? He had no memory - and no memory of a memory - of it in his head. He'd gone into bedrooms before to kill people, but they'd been all straight lines and wide spaces. This room was curved lines and compact space and felt - living. As though someone actually lived here instead of just spending time here. He had no memory of being in this room before but still there was a hint, a trace, an echo of familiarity. When he took a quiet step farther into the room he realized what it was - the smell. There was some familiar smell in this room.

It wasn't a recently familiar smell. The only smells he remembered being familiar with were alcohol and antiseptics, the bitter smells of cryofreeze and the blunt smells of death. The mask he always wore on missions had been specially made to filter out smells because smells were triggers to memories and memories weren't allowed. Anything that started in a memory ended in pain. Memories were bad.

And yet - _I'm not going to fight you, you're my friend_ - the man on the helicarrier had wanted him to remember. He'd wanted him to live outside of mask and mission and confinement, where memories were allowed. Where they were encouraged. Where they were _good._

He took another step into the room and deliberately smelled that smell.

_~ Old Spice ~ _ the words or thought or memory rushed so forcefully into his memory he thought he could actually feel it erupt out of his brain. He didn't know what the words meant other than that he remembered something - he remembered that smell.

Unexpectedly, moisture filled his eyes. He didn't know why - the smell wasn't noxious, there was no evidence of other airborne contaminant or irritants - but his eyes watered and an odd pain flared behind his rib cage. Nothing else happened, his pulse didn't speed up or slow down, his air passages didn't burn or swell, so he thought it had to be some kind of aberration, but still one that he didn't want to ignore.

He pushed aside that smell and what the memory of it might mean and continued his mission of finding some clothes so he could retreat to the outside world and the relative safety of silence and concealment.

The clothes on the chair were easiest to take since it didn't involve opening a drawer or closet. He picked them up with is robotic arm - there was a jacket, a pair of pants, and a hat with a bill. They all seemed like they'd fit. That familiar smell was stronger here though, and his eyes watered more, so he made the decision to exit the apartment immediately. He rolled the clothes together and walked soundlessly out of the bedroom, through the kitchen and back to window in the front room that led him back outside.

Once safe in shadows and back alleys, he retraced his steps to the woods at the edge of the river. He stripped out of his uniform jacket and pants and pulled the ones he'd taken on over his black t-shirt. He took the few remaining weapons out of his uniform pockets and put them in the pockets of the new clothes and he felt a piece of paper folded up and tucked away in the pants pocket. He pulled it out and walked into a shaft of moonlight to read it.

_Captain America Exhibit, National Air and Space Museum, Open every day except December 25.  
>10:00 am – 5:30 pm. Admission is free. <em>

And there, next to a picture of the man from the helicarrier, there was a picture of him.

_Who the hell is Bucky?_

Maybe he'd be able to find out.

tbc._  
><em>


	3. Chapter 3

As soon as the sun breached the horizon, the sound of helicopters and fire boats roused him from a half sleep and pushed him from his hiding place in the woods. More personnel and equipment were swarming the banks of the Potomac, resuming the search and recovery of equipment and bodies. They'd be working here for months. He'd have to find another, more secure safe-spot.

He'd thrown his uniform into the river the night before, hurling the jacket and trousers out into the carnage to become part of the floating islands of debris. Now, wearing his acquired clothes, he moved out of the woods, away from river and towards the city. His right arm was fully healed and usable and he pushed his robotic hand into the jacket pocket to conceal it.

As he walked, he kept his head down but paid attention to everything. Only a few persons were already moving through the darkness and deep shadows that still filled the streets. Vagrants, most of them, haunting the alleys and garbage containers. They were no threat. But soon more people would be present on the sidewalks, men and women going to work, children going to school, and more than likely, members of an extraction team looking for their lost asset.

They weren't going to find him.

As soon as more people thronged the sidewalks it would be easier for him to blend in and proceed unnoticed to the Smithsonian. Until then, he needed somewhere to conceal himself.

He scanned the area. Office buildings, government buildings, storefronts, surrounded him. One building, still in the early stages of construction, occupied the northwest corner of a three-way intersection. He walked to the back of the building and in a few minutes he'd pulled aside the pressboard barrier nailed over the unfinished doorway and was inside.

An array of smells inundated him in the dark, empty space and his brain rushed to isolate and identify them. _Raw wood. Raw cement. Chlorine. Asphalt. Industrial adhesive. Dampness. Mustiness. _He wasn't unfamiliar with the smells. None of them indicated anything threatening or dangerous and once the initial assault on his sense of smell had faded, he disregarded them and chose a corner to sit and wait.

_You're James Buchanan Barnes. You've known me your whole life. You're my friend._

As soon as those memories appeared, his brain inserted other memories. _Mission report. Confirmed death. Do your job._ He'd long ago had the habit of indulging in comforting memories burned and beaten out of him. _Mission report. Confirmed death. Do your job._

But now, he pushed back against that training and let those memories rise out of the swirl of memories.

_You're James Buchanan Barnes. You've known me your whole life. You're my friend._

He had a friend. He had a life. He had a name.

His eyes watered again, as they had at the apartment, and that strange sensation of dull pain flared behind his sternum.

He had a life. He had a name.

When the sound of people and cars indicated there was enough traffic to be an adequate diversion, he left his hiding place and merged into the stream of pedestrians, following the map in his head to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

He knew how not to draw attention to himself, but it felt odd, walking with other people. He was used to people running screaming out of his way, stopping traffic just by standing in the street. He wasn't accustomed to being part of a crush of foot traffic, jostled and passed by unconcerned people, standing in a crowd on a street corner waiting for the traffic light to change.

But that was _before_.

_Now_ was different.

_Now_ he had a name. _Now _he had a life.

He just had to remember it.

To be continued.


	4. Chapter 4

_Steven G. Rogers._

He mouthed the name and let it roll around in his head, but nothing caught.

_Steven G. Rogers. You're my friend._

The Captain America exhibit was crowded, even for so early in the morning, but no one paid any attention to him as he circled the displays until he found the one he was looking for.

_Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. You're my friend._

He stared at the display, at the picture of _James Buchanan Barnes_ posted there. He listened to the audio descriptions. '…_Steven G. Rogers and Bucky Barnes, inseparable in the schoolyard and the battlefield…' _That couldn't be him. The accompanying description spoke of a friend and soldier and man who chose to put other people's welfare before his own.

That wasn't him. He wasn't Bucky Barnes. He couldn't be. He wasn't a friend; _Steven G. Rogers_ lying broken and bloody in some nearby hospital was proof enough of that. He was assigned missions; he never chose them. He was an assassin, not a soldier. He was a machine; he wasn't a man.

He turned away from the display, feeling a heaviness on his shoulders and in his chest that he was beginning to realize had no true physical cause. Even if he had ever been Bucky Barnes - he wasn't him now. He didn't remember that man. He couldn't remember how to be that man.

As he turned, he saw the video display. Film footage of Bucky Barnes. Every scene James Buchanan Barnes was in, Steven G. Rogers was in as well, as though they were connected, as though they were a team.

_Inseparable on schoolyard and battlefield…_

That made sense, he thought. That was why Rogers wanted him back now - he wanted the soldier, he wanted the team, he wanted -

And then the scene came up of them laughing. Bucky was laughing hard, harder than Steve, but they were both laughing at something. They were together. They were happy. They were laughing.

A bright memory crawled out of a dark abyss. Two boys walking down a street, half eaten apples in their hands, thin bundles of books slung over their shoulders.

_Hey, Steve - who's bigger? Mrs. Bigger or Mrs. Bigger's baby? It's Mrs. Bigger's baby. He's just a Little Bigger…_

And then they laughed.

_Best friends since childhood…_

He remembered laughing.

He watched that video replay five times, trying to let his mind open up to other memories ~ _friends, laughing, inseparable _~ but the gut reaction of expecting to be punished for remembering drove the elements of memories back into the abyss.

Finally, he turned away from the exhibit and towards the front door of the museum. He passed a water fountain and he stopped and stared at that a moment. It occurred to him that he hadn't eaten anything or had anything to drink in at least a day. He never thought about it before. He'd never had to think about it before - he ate and drank when it was given to him. When it wasn't, he didn't.

But now - no extraction team, no extraction, so no food or water that he didn't provide for himself.

After briefly considering the logistics of it, he approached the water fountain. He pressed the lever with his right hand and took a drink of water. A very long drink of water. It tasted good and wet and made him realize that he hadn't realized how thirsty he was.

He finished his long drink, wiped his mouth and gave one last look to the Captain America display ~ _you're my friend, you've known me your whole life _~ then walked back outside.

He felt like he was leaving a giant piece of himself behind, stretched like a rubber band pulled too far. He scanned the streets and sidewalks and rooftops, instinctively expecting an extraction team to be near and waiting for him. He shook his head to clear that thought. They weren't there. They weren't coming. He wouldn't go with them even if they were.

Wanting to stay in the vicinity of the museum and the exhibit, he searched the neighborhood for potential locations he could conceal himself. Alone in the quiet, maybe his memories would emerge. Maybe he could remember being a friend. Being a person. Being a man.

Close to the Metro station, he turned down an alley and found a small brick building, with a big sign across the facade, "KEEP OUT - TO BE DEMOLISHED." That would do.

A collapsible gate was pulled across the front of the building and padlocked in place. He reached out with his robotic hand and ripped the lock off and pushed the gate aside enough to slip behind it.

It was then that he saw two young boys, stopped dead in the alleyway, staring at him. Both their mouths hung open and the smaller of the two raised a hand to point at him, but the other one, the taller one, grabbed his shoulder and they both ran away.

When they were gone, he pushed his way past the gate and boarded door and into the dark, damp interior.

To be continued  
>(next chapter, he and Steve find each other - with help)<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

"_Sergeant Barnes?"_

He was crouched in the corner of a second floor room. The sun came into this room and so he spent his time in here. He couldn't remember how long he'd been in this room. Inside this building. A few days. Maybe more. Going outside meant risking recapture and he wasn't going to risk that.

The building was marked for demolition but the faucet in the decaying bathroom still produced brackish water. It was musty but he drank it when he had to. He hadn't had any food, though, and the hunger in his stomach had turned into a floating pain that filled his skull.

"_Sergeant Barnes?"_

The worst thing was the memories. They skittered in his brain the way the rats skittered through this building, active and wary and always just out of reach. Even the solid memories - of being on the helicarrier, fighting that other man, trying to kill him, being saved by him, saving him – were treacherous; as soon as he started to remember them, the threat of the pain of memory wipes blocked them, eroded them. Tried to protect him from the pain that remembering them always caused. If he could grab even just one memory and make it stay, maybe he could –

"_**Bucky?"**_

The sound of that name, coming from outside his own mind, shocked him. He looked up. There was a man standing in front of him and he stood up quickly, too quickly maybe as the movement made him feel unsteady. But he stood up, ready to defend himself if he had to. The man wasn't familiar to him but that didn't mean he wasn't there to return him to his prison.

"Sergeant Barnes? I'm sorry…" He was a big man, strong, but he was dressed in a plain shirt and pants, not a uniform, and he held his hands up in front of himself, placatingly. "I didn't mean to startle you. My name is Bruce Banner. I'm affiliated with the organization known as SHIELD."

The man - Banner - stopped there and looked at him as though he expected some answer.

"Are you familiar with that organization, Sergeant Barnes?"

The name, SHIELD, echoed in his head. He licked his dry tongue over his dry lips.

He nodded.

"I'm your enemy." If Banner was there to try to take him prisoner, he was going to fail. Fatally.

"No. No, not at all." Banner said. "You're a soldier. An American soldier. You were captured by the enemy and held captive. You were brainwashed and you were tortured." His expression twisted as though saying the words caused him pain. "But you escaped and I'm here to bring you home."

_Home. _ The word pointed to a memory that wouldn't stand still, flashes of dark wood, bright rugs, blocks of ice, bread with butter, and people whose faces wouldn't come into focus. _Home._

"Sergeant Barnes?"

"There is no home. I don't remember home."

Banner smiled, not a hard smile approving of hard things, but a soft smile that might have been remorseful.

"You have a home. You still have a home. I'm here to make sure you get there."

Home. He couldn't imagine what it was or where it might be. Unless it was code for something else. For more of the same. Maybe 'home' was more bars, more locks, more pain, more nothing.

He didn't want nothing anymore.

"I'm not going back."

"No. You're going forward. You're going home. I have a car outside, if you'd like to come with me. You need food and rest. You need to clean up and get fresh clothes."

Food – tasteless objects on metal trays with attached spoons. Rest – an upright examination chair that could be used to instantly subdue and punish him. Clothes – a mobile weapons vault, hot, heavy, and bullet proof. Clean – even all the water in the Potomac wouldn't make him clean.

The Potomac.

"Is he all right?" He asked. He hadn't realized the question was waiting to be asked.

"'He'? You mean Steve? Captain Rogers? Yes, he's fine. He's out looking for you." Banner smiled that remorseful smile again. "If I don't call him pretty soon and let him know I found you, I think he might have my head."

"He's looking for me?"

"Did you think he wouldn't be?"

Yes, that was what he thought, that he was on his own, that he - Captain America ~ _Steve_ ~ wouldn't be looking for him, that he'd be glad to never see him again, that –

"_Bucky,"_ Banner's insistent voice broke into his thoughts again. "You're safe now and I want to take you to Steve. Please."

_Please_. He'd only heard that word from people who knew they were about to die and thought they could plead their lives. It never had an effect on him.

"_Please come with me. Please."_

Until now.

He nodded and Banner nodded in return and turned to the doorway.

"The car's just outside. Where we're going isn't too far away."

They made slow progress down the litter-filled stairwell, Banner in the lead. The board over the doorway was propped open, letting sunlight inside the room. The empty room. The guards were probably just outside the door, guns at the ready. He'd be herded into his containment vehicle and guarded like the unstable monster that they thought he was.

That he had always been.

But only an unmarked car sat in the alleyway past the door. And maybe not even an unmarked car, but just a car. No tinted windows, no bulletproofing, no reinforced paneling.

"Where are the guards?"

"We don't need them," Banner said. "Trust me – I can protect you."

"Protect - me?" He was watched, guarded, subdued, restrained, unleashed - never _protected_.

"Yes, protect _you._" Banner opened the front door of the car and stood back as though waiting for him to get in. In the front seat. But he never rode in the front seat of any vehicle. "Truly, Sergeant Barnes - _Bucky_ - I'm here to protect you and to bring you to Steve."

After a look between the car and Banner, he got into the front seat of the car and sat stiffly, both hands hanging between his knees, eyes straight ahead. Banner shut the door and got into the driver's side. He took a phone out his shirt pocket and rapidly pushed a series of buttons. Then he put the phone away and started the car.

"All right, let's see who gets there first, us or Steve."

They pulled out into traffic and drove a few blocks. He kept his eyes straight ahead. No looking around. When he wasn't on a mission, he didn't look around, whether or not the vehicle windows were blacked out. He kept still now, looked straight ahead, and didn't ask Banner about the other man - _Steve_ - because curiosity was always 'discouraged', brutally.

But a small thought floated across his brain that he only observed and didn't engage in any way and so it didn't skitter away - would he see _Steve_ soon?

Only a few blocks away from where he'd been in hiding, Banner turned the car into the entrance of an underground parking garage at the bottom of a tall office building. They stopped at a security station.

"Doctor Banner," the guard said, brisk and authoritative. "Mr. Stark requested you park here on the first level, in his personal parking space next to the bank of elevators. You'll enter the first elevator and proceed to the conference room on the 32nd floor." Then he waved them through.

Stark. Stark? That name was familiar. It was familiar in a way that didn't threaten being burned out of him, and in a way that did. What did that mean? Stark? Mr. Stark?

A memory turned through his head like a revolving door - laughing with Steve about something that someone named Stark had said…

_"No, Bucky, really - that's what he said it was. Just bread and cheese. Stop laughing at me, jerk. You woulda thought so too, the way Stark said it."_

"All right, here we go." Suddenly the car was parked and the door next to him was open and Banner - _Doctor _Banner - was waiting for him to get out.

The feeling of being an over-stretched rubber band was making him consider escaping. This could all be a trap. It probably was a very elaborate trap. He was SHIELD's enemy. They could do things to him that would make his time with Hydra feel like a day at Coney Island.

What was Coney Island?

"I'm not going back," he said.

Banner sighed and smiled as though it were painful to smile. He crouched down next to the car.

"Sergeant Barnes - _Bucky_ - I know you don't trust me. I know I've done nothing to earn your trust. But - please believe me when I say that you're not only safe here, you're free. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. No one will try to keep you here. No one will stop you if you choose to leave. But if you come upstairs with me, you'll be given food and clothes and - and _Steve_ is on his way here.

_Free_. Just hearing the word made his heart ache. Free was the sights and sounds and smells and memories he was always forbidden. Free was everything he was never allowed.

"I don't remember free."

Banner nodded as though he understood.

"You will. You'll get used to it again. C'mon upstairs with me now and let's get you some food. All right?"

He nodded. Maybe he was making a mistake but he was hungry and tired and dirty and it was just easier to follow orders, even if they were orders cloaked as friendly requests. He nodded and got out of the car and followed Banner to the elevator where another guard punched a code into the control panel. When the doors opened he followed Banner inside and stood still next to him as the beeping lights counted off the floors they passed.

"All right, here we go," Banner said as the elevator slowed and the doors opened again. "Follow me."

So he followed him out of the elevator and down a hallway. It was an empty hallway, with a carpeted floor and beige wallpaper and a line of closed doors. Banner stopped at the one open door and gestured that he should go inside.

"Have a seat, I'm going to find someone and order you some lunch. Just give me a minute."

He went in. It was a long room with a long table completely surrounded with chairs. The windows along the outside wall were close to the ceiling. Several credenzas lined the walls. No cryofreeze chamber. No mind-wipe machines. No restraints.

"How're you holding up?" Banner asked, coming back into the room. "Would you like some water? I think Stark keeps juice in here, too." He crouched in front of a credenza and opened a door that revealed a small refrigerator. "I ordered you coffee and milk with lunch, I hope that's all right. Or I can get you anything you want."

He listened to the words. He understood the words. But he couldn't understand how they were meant for him. No one ever asked how he was or what he wanted or if he wanted something else. He wasn't given choices. He was given what he was given and that was it.

Banner nodded again as though he understood something that hadn't been said. He closed the refrigerator and stood up. He gestured to the table.

"Please, sit down."

The table and chairs looked safe so he pulled a chair out and sat in it. He rested his right hand on the table and his robotic hand in his lap. Banner sat in the chair diagonal to him.

"How are you doing?"

How was he doing? He wasn't hurt. He wasn't dead. He didn't think he'd done anything wrong. He was just waiting.

He didn't answer. Banner nodded again at the something that hadn't been said.

"It's okay. They're on the way up with your food. We'll see how you feel after you eat."

Food. He was hungry but he'd long ago lost his appetite for the tough, bland, tasteless mess he was always served. But eating would ease the pain in his head at least.

He heard a bell and the sound of the elevator doors opening. Banner stood up, "that's probably your lunch now," and walked out into the hallway. He said "I'll take it in, thank you," to someone and came back carrying a tray filled with food that he set down on the table.

"Here you go. They said Steve just entered the building so I guess we can expect him to burst through a wall anytime now." Banner smiled but it didn't sound funny, and then Banner stopped smiling like he suddenly realized it. "He'll be here any second."

He'd barely finished saying that when there was the sound of a door being slammed open and a voice shouting, "Banner! Where are you? Where is he?"

And then _Steven G. Rogers_ was standing in the doorway to this room.

tbc

A/N: I'm sorry – I wanted more of Steve in this chapter but it's as long as two chapters already and I want Steve & Bucky to have their own chapter. Thank you for your patience!


	6. Chapter 6

"Bucky?" _Steven G. Rogers' _voice was a whisper. "Bucky, is that you?"

Well, he might've once been Bucky Barnes, but he didn't know who or what he was now, so he didn't answer. He looked down to the tray that Banner had set in front of him. It wasn't his usual fare – flat beige food on gray metal trays - this tray was round and wooden and held three covered dishes, a stoneware cup, a small stoneware coffee pot, a pint carton of milk, and a cloth napkin wrapped around a real set of fork, knife, and spoon.

_Steve _stood in the doorway and stared as though what he was seeing was too painful or too incredible or too impossible to believe. Banner stood near him, arms crossed, leaning a shoulder against the door frame. Not like he was on guard or watching or wary, but just standing, watching Steve with that soft, remorseful smile.

"I ordered food," Banner said and Steve started as though the words or just the voice surprised him. "Have you had lunch?"

"What? No - I didn't - I just - Bucky?" Steve walked toward the table, slowly. He wasn't wearing the Captain America uniform; like Banner he was in a plain shirt and trousers, and a brown jacket.

Banner straightened up and gestured into the hallway.

"I'll be nearby if you need me," he said. "Tony said we can be here as long as we need." He left the room and closed the door, leaving the two of them alone. And suddenly, that 'stretched rubber band' feeling disappeared. He couldn't explain it and he didn't try to figure it out because he was afraid the feeling would be driven away by the instinctive fear of another memory wipe - but Steve felt _safe._

"Can I sit?" Steve asked, indicating the chair Banner had been sitting in.

He nodded and Steve sat down. That explained the food, he thought. It was for Steve. He reached with his right hand and pushed the tray over.

"What's this?" Steve asked. He seemed genuinely confused.

He thought over his words, wondering if there was a good or bad way to say it.

"You haven't eaten."

He expected Steve to accept the food and begin eating it. But Steve smiled broadly and his eyes shone as though they were filling with tears. He started to say something but he had to clear his throat twice before he could say it.

"Well, what do you say we split it?"

Steve lifted the white covers from the plates. There was a sandwich as big as three blocks of C4 on one plate, a bowl of red soup - _tomato soup,_ his memory supplied - on the second plate, and a bowl of chunks of fruit on the third.

"All right, here we go." Steve picked up half of the sandwich and pushed the tray back to him. But that couldn't be right. He was never given food like this. This looked like real food, and he was never given real food. "Bucky? It's OK. I've had this before; it's not my style but it actually tastes pretty good."

Even though his mouth watered just looking at the food, he had to force himself to pick up the other half of the sandwich, expecting any second to be 'discouraged' from wanting more than he was ever given. He picked it up in his right hand and took a cautious bite; he tasted bread and cheese and apple.

It tasted _good._

A memory floated by as he swallowed.

…_bread and cheese…_

"Is this fondue?" He asked and Steve choked and coughed and laughed, smiling that broad smile again.

"You remember fondue?"

He thought again how to answer.

"I remember remembering it."

That seemed to be an acceptable answer as Steve kept smiling although his eyes still shone with moisture.

"This is Tony's version of grilled cheese. The ingredients probably cost more than my rent, but I guess it tastes pretty good. What do you think?"

_Think? _What did he think?

He didn't think. He planned and acted and reacted and strategized and killed. He didn't think.

He took another bite of the sandwich and stared down at the table. Always when he was given food he ate alone, under the watch of at least three armed guards. The food was always bland - taste could trigger memories and memories were bad - and always eaten as a necessity, never as a pleasure. The same as the rest of his existence, eating, showering, repairs to his arm or to his body, they were only moments that had to be gotten through as efficiently as possible. They were only spaces between his missions.

_You're my mission. _

_You're. My. Mission._

That memory made him flinch. He swallowed what he had in his mouth then put the sandwich down and scrubbed his hand over his mouth. He'd fought Steve - shot him, stabbed him, beat him nearly unconscious, broken into his apartment, stolen his clothes - all of those memories flowed clear and unimpeded into his brain and made him sick.

"What is it?" Steve asked. "Are you okay?"

"You're my mission," he whispered and something familiar, vital, and dangerous flared into his skull and shoved aside the pain in favor of _the_ _mission_. He felt calm. He felt driven.

"Buck?"

He felt afraid.

"I don't want to hurt you," he said but his ingrained training clawed at his resolve. "You're my mission."

Steve swallowed hard but his face gave away nothing. He put his sandwich on the tray and cleared his throat and was probably trying to plot the quickest way out of this room.

"Yeah, your mission was to save me. After I fell into the river, I was drowning and your mission was to save me. You pulled me out. Do you remember that?"

He did remember that. Of course he remembered that. But that wasn't his mission.

"My mission was to kill you."

Steve nodded.

"That was before. That was the mission _they_ gave you. But the mission you chose after that was to save me. Right? You chose to save me. You chose a different mission."

That made no sense. _Target. Confirmed death. Mission report. _Those made sense. Those words slipped into the well-worn grooves of his memory and ran easily and rapidly around in his head. Those words felt natural and essential and completely _him._

"My mission…I need a mission. If I don't have one…"

Now Steve looked down, at his fingers laced together on top of the table.

"I know. I know that whenever you didn't have a mission, they – they – "

"They froze me."

Steve nodded and sighed and nodded again, then smiled.

"As far back as I remember, protecting me was your mission. You spent your whole life watching out for me. That's not new. That's been your mission your whole life. And now – I get to protect you, too. Now we're both on the same mission."

He nodded. Mission. He had a mission. He was safe; he had a mission.

"All right. So, what do you say we finish this lunch and get you a shower, and then get you home. We've got a lot of catching up to do."

"All right."

Steve picked his sandwich up and then he did, too and finished eating it.

_Safe. Home. Protect Steve._

Those words made sense, too.

To be continued.


	7. Chapter 7

When they were done eating the sandwich, Steve pushed the tray closer to him.

"Here, why don't you see what you think of the soup? Tomato was never really my thing."

_Thing. _Wasn't his _thing._ That sounded familiar. He remembered when his handlers – not recent ones – started using that phrase. Not to him. They didn't talk to him. Nobody ever talked to him. They talked _at_ him. They ordered him and warned him and berated him and criticized him and browbeat him, but they never talked to him.

"Bucky? Hey – you with me, Pal?"

He looked up and saw Steve looking at him, head tipped down, eyebrows pulled together, like he was worried, like he was questioning something. But Steve smiled when their eyes met and pushed the tray again.

"Why don't you try the soup?"

Soup. Food. More food.

He was always given enough food but not this kind of food. This kind of food was for his handlers and for _their_ handlers and for the men in suits who – literally – called his shots. Food like this was never for him.

"You won't get in trouble if I eat it?"

And again Steve started to say something but had to clear his throat before he could get it out.

"I'm sure. This is for you."

So he ate the soup, it was warm in his mouth and tasted even better than the sandwich had tasted. It tasted better than anything he ever remembered tasting. But when Steve asked, "How is it?" he couldn't remember how to answer the question.

"It's tomato soup," he said, because he wanted to answer Steve, even though he knew his answer didn't actually answer the question.

"Do you like it?"

_Like it?_ Nobody cared if he liked anything or didn't like anything. If ever he was asked the question, _do you like it?_, it was a taunt or a threat or a persuasion. If he liked the soup and did as he was told, he might get more next time. Or he might not. There was never a guarantee.

"Bucky? If you like it, we'll get more to bring home for you."

"Home?" That's what Dr. Banner had said. Take him home. "This isn't home?"

"No." Steve looked surprised. "This is just an office building. A big, ugly – anyway, no. Home is an apartment building on the other side of town. When you're ready, we'll head home."

_Ready_. He dropped the spoon and pushed the tray away and stood up. He was ready whenever he needed to be ready. He was ready when he was told to be ready. He was ready whether he wanted to be ready or not.

Steve stood up too but didn't start to walk out of the room; he gestured with both hands as though he was patting something down.

"Not yet. You haven't finished your lunch. It'll be soon, I promise. But – not yet. Sit. Finish eating."

But he didn't sit. It didn't make sense to sit and eat when it was time to move on.

"I'm ready."

"All right," Steve said, and smiled. "Then let's go home."

To be continued


End file.
